IPCC The Politics of Bureaucracies: Pachauri's Bizarre Tip Of Iceberg

Why do polls show the public is unconcerned about global warming or climate change, yet most politicians continue to support considerable funding for research and the push for remedial action? The Pew Centre consistently place global warming near the bottom (Figure 1).

Figure 1

A UN poll, which should influence activities and priorities of that agency show the same pattern (Figure 2).

The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is to join a public march calling for action on climate change this weekend. “I will link arms with those marching for climate action,” Ban told a press conference. “We stand with them on the right side of this key issue for our common future.” His unusual step – high-ranking officials do not normally attend mass public protests – is a measure of how high the stakes are at a summit next week of world leaders, called by the secretary-general, to discuss climate change.

Of course, he has little choice because the evidence and warnings of the dangers of climate change come from his agency. The same is true of most countries; it is bureaucrats in national weather departments who push the UN climate change agenda. The politicians are not in control because they don’t understand the science or are afraid to challenge their government appointed “experts”.

A few countries, such as India, oppose the trend most prominently pushed by President Obama. India accepted the resignation of Rajendra Pachauri from the Prime Ministers Council on Climate Change. As the Indian Express explained,

“The Council decides on broad policy guidelines on climate change, and is headed by the Prime Minister.”

It is possible Pachauri’s charges were an opportunity to sideline the most vehement proponent – it occurred in a country that does not have a stellar record in dealing with rape, let alone sexual harassment of women.

Pachauri’s resignation from his bureaucratic role as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sparked a mixture of reactions from relief, amusement, and “it’s about time”. It is a useful change but does not deal with the wider problem of total control by bureaucrats. He was just the most exposed, active and biased. The power remains with the national, bureaucratically controlled, weather and climate departments around the world. Pachauri’s actions were all slavish dedications to what the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) people called “The Cause.” His commitment was religious as he acknowledged.

“I will continue to [work on climate change] assiduously throughout my life in what ever capacity I work. For me the protection of planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than my mission, it is my religion.”

As such, it was blind faith and anyone who questioned it was a heretic. Laframboise identified Pachauri’s aloof response to a ruling by a UK regulatory body.

The IPCC is an organization that brings together the best experts from all over the world committed to working on an objective assessment of all aspects of climate change. The relevance and integrity of its work cannot be belittled by misleading or irresponsible reporting.

Pachauri was an extreme and almost unique bureaucrat, but that is one of the few differences between the UN and National bureaucracies.

Author and political commentator Mary McCarthy said, “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.” The global warming/climate change issue is a frightening, textbook example.

Few are as skilled at exploiting the political opportunities available than Maurice Strong. He took the political agenda of the Club of Rome initiated in the 1960s but explained in their book 1991 Report “The First Global Revolution” and entrenched it in Agenda 21 with the IPCC providing scientific evidence.

Elaine Dewar explained in The Cloak of Green that he went to the UN because

He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda.

Strong achieved that agenda with his acknowledged abilities. As Neil Hrab explained,

Mainly using his prodigious skills as a networker. Over a lifetime of mixing private sector career success with stints in government and international groups, Strong has honed his networking abilities to perfection.

What’s truly alarming about Maurice Strong is his actual record. Strong’s persistent calls for an international mobilization to combat environmental calamities, even when they are exaggerated (population growth) or scientifically unproven (global warming), have set the world’s environmental agenda.

He established the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) set up the IPCC. They directed the IPCC objective to produce the science necessary to support their claim that human CO2 was causing runaway global warming.

Appointees of the WMO dominate the IPCC. Strong likely had a hand in the appointment of senior Environment Canada bureaucrat Gordon McBean as Chair of the 1985 meeting in Villach Austria. As Richard Lindzen explained:

IPCC’s emphasis, however, isn’t on getting qualified scientists, but on getting representatives from over 100 countries, said Lindzen. The truth is only a handful of countries do quality climate research. Most of the so-called experts served merely to pad the numbers.

In all countries bureaucrats of national weather departments directed policy and easily challenged politicians who contradicted them – they were the experts. Lindzen knew from his direct involvement with the IPCC:

It is no small matter that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as ‘the world’s leading climate scientists.’ It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.

Bureaucratic control seems to explain the continued, almost total political support for the IPCC. This support continues despite evidence of corruption, failed predictions and polls showing virtually no public concern. There are some exceptions, noticeably the Obama administration. The political ideology is given scientific support and drive by his Science Advisor, John Holdren. He was involved in the process from the start. He co-authored a book with Paul Ehrlich and was a major player in the Club of Rome agenda. While Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy & Director, Program in Science he participated in the attacks on Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. It appears he is the power behind the most recent attacks on Soon.

Major weather offices with very direct involvement in the IPCC include the UKMO and NOAA. Sir John Houghton was moved from the UKMO to act as the first co-chair of the IPCC. NOAA employee Susan Solomon’s contribution includes co-editing IPCC Reports. It began by working on the progenitor of the Kyoto Protocol, the Montreal Protocol on ozone. Solomon et al’s., paper “Observations of the Nighttime Abundance of OCLO in the Winter Stratosphere Above Thule, Greenland,” Science, Vol. 242, October, p. 550-554, that was used as proof that chlorine from CFCs was causing ozone depletion.

People like Solomon are scientists, but a problem of objectivity develops when government hires them. They are not as openly driven to serve political masters as Pachauri, but the danger is very real. On 3 September 2010 in response to the question “Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?” Pachauri told the Times of India,

Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments. If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered. Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent?

Laframboise suggests in the article referenced earlier that Pachauri’s excessive commitment is mostly cultural. That may be true about his role as an administrative bureaucrat, but it also underscores a serious problem with bureaucrats doing research anywhere.

I wrote about one dilemma I confronted with a bureaucrat doing research,which contradicted his political leader’s publicly stated position. The conflict with unrestricted scientific research is obvious. You are a bureaucrat and as Pachauri says, “we are owned by governments.” Governments determine the areas of research, but by having publicly held and politically biased positions bureaucrats effectively dictate the results required. I know of another Canadian Federal government researcher who reached a conclusion about an agricultural chemical that conflicted with the government’s public position. While on a two-week vacation they sent him an email offering an early retirement package to his work email. It said if the offer were not accepted within one week it would be automatically invoked. He returned to find his job terminated.

David Anderson, former Canadian Minister of the Environment announced government acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol. In the Press release he said they had consulted with all Canadian climate experts. Eight Canadian climate experts flew to Ottawa for a press conference to announce they were not consulted. Of course, the Minister was referring mostly to the bureaucratic scientists at Environment Canada.

Despite a distrust of politicians, people tend to have greater trust of governments. The trust varies nationally, but even in the US the authority of branches of government benefits from the view that bureaucrats are just following orders and don’t have a political agenda. This is particularly true of issues like weather and climate. People can’t imagine why or how they could have a political agenda.

Bureaucrats have the advantage that what they produce comes with an unseen, unwritten, seal of approval. It is assumed safe for schools. Indeed, the level of political involvement in both NOAA, and NASA provide special weather and climate material for children. Guess what they present?

Two issues that further entrench the power of bureaucrats include that they outlast most politicians and their department policy becomes the base for all other departments. For example, planning for the future of agriculture assumes that the future is warmer with more droughts.

Government’s sole scientific function should be data collection. The data must be available to anyone free of charge since they already paid for it. Government should not do any research because it is guaranteed to be political. Research submitted to a government must be presented written so anyone can understand. The IPCC evades detection of the inadequacies of their research and science by producing a document, the Summary for Policymakers, designed to simplify, but also distort for their political agenda. Under pressure, they finally allowed a more open review system but manipulated, delayed, cherry-picked and made it a mockery.

Maurice Strong used his skills to place bureaucrats of each nation in control of the IPCC. Through them they control the politicians. They are the major explanation for the contradiction between the public view expressed in the polls, the failed predictions, the falsified and contradicted science and the politicians. Laurence. J. Peter said,

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time the quo has lost its status.

When the status also fits their personal political agenda they can make it last even longer.

147 thoughts on “IPCC The Politics of Bureaucracies: Pachauri's Bizarre Tip Of Iceberg”

IPCC pseudoscience is based on 50 years’ incorrect radiative physics teaching in US Atmospheric Science [from 1996, Goody and Yung]. This is to claim a radiant emittance, aka exitance, aka radiosity what is predicted by the Stefan-Boltzmannn equation, is a real energy flux, when it is the potential radiative energy flux vector, in a vacuum, to a radiation sink at Absolute Zero.
Net radiative flux at any plane is the vector sum of Irradiances at the plane, standard engineering heat transfer maths. In the air, the heat transfer coefficient for coupled radiation and convection is an inverse function of (Tsurface^4 – Tair^4), see Equ 4: http://www.thermopedia.com/content/204/?tid=104&sn=1132
This maths was used to design the SR71 and Concorde, so it works. Modern day climate Alchemy is populated by people who have regressed to the mean of IQ and education yet are paid to harass real scientists and engineers who deviate from the Mantra that ‘back radiation, the atmosphere’s radiant emittance, is a real energy flux, not a potential energy flux vector.
50 years of fake fizzicks is our era’s version of the Phlogiston Hoax. The Enhanced GHE is our Lysenkoism, expertly set up by Maurice Strong and pushed by the ignorant Clown he placed in charge of the IPCC.

The science itself is indeed the fundamental reason why the warm-mongers are losing the plot, namely, reality does not work as they predict. This is tragic for them but fortunate for humanity.
Strangely, btw, human activities might be adding heat to the planet and yet the planet still might cool or, just the same, human activities might be sucking heat out of the the planet and yet the planet still might warm.
I expect the warm-mongers to morph into angry activists of another crusade as soon as they find one. They have done so in the past on many other issues ranging from as far as oncology to linguistics.

Brute,
“I expect the warm-mongers to morph into angry activists of another crusade as soon as they find one. ”
That’s a good prediction–in fact, it’s a prediction of the past!
Don’t be confused by the appearance that our opponents are advocating one single issue, here “Global Warming.”
Regardless of the issue they browbeat the Normal public with, their belief system is focused on a hatred of Normal-America. Their belief system can be summarized in one sentence: “America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist, capitalist hell-hole.”
The corollary action component of their belief system is: “America must be changed.”
The AGW crusade is focused on one bullet point of their belief system (“capitalist hell-hole”), combined with the corollary–“must be changed.” Destroying our society’s ability to use existing energy sources is an ingenious implementation of their belief system.
So, you may want to shift your focus to realize that your “angry activists” are always on other crusades, part and parcel of their mission of destruction. Each of the bullet points in their creed has an accompanying “crusade for change” unfolding, even as you read this.
Full details:http://intelctweekly.blogspot.com/2014/07/politically-correct-progressive-belief.html

@kentclizbe
The US has been hit hard by the warm-mongers but not as hard as other countries. It’s unsurprising, really. The wealthier a country is, the better its population can defend itself from fads of governance.
@Jim Francisco
I was asking myself the same question in the early 90s and “climate” sounded as far-fetched as candidate for the next social hysteria then as UFO’s might seem now. I mean, now that profoundly delusional notions such as “act on climate” and “climate denial” have become part of the collective language, people talk about these issues as if they were actually real. They are not. They have as much reality as an extraterrestrial species of semaphore-looking creatures whose linguistic communications are conveyed through complex series of loud flatulences.
The point is that the harm is done by the type of person that militates aggressively and not by the “cause” they happen to endorse at a given time. The “cause” will change but the harmful person will continue to go after others if given the chance.
Consider Pachauri, is he a molester because of CAGW? No. He was a molester before the IPCC came to exist, he is a molester now, and he will be a molester tomorrow. The climate crusade is his current excuse, the alibi for his abuse, but the harm is within the man himself and will express itself as soon as he, as the coward he is, feels he can get away with it.

Kentclizbe, you are so right. The issue of AGW is only one of the many fronts on which the communist internationale is attacking free societies (although this particular “controversy” has had a much longer than normal run). Other topics are world peace, Jew hatred and ultra-tolerance of Muslims, social justice, economnic justice, “for the children”, save the whales, attacking the 2nd Amendment, welfare of all sorts, education reform, political corrertness, and etc. ad infinitum. At the center of all these movements you will find a committed hard red core. They are experts at playing on the emotions of inexperienced and idealistic youth, as well as the slow-witted, to enlist them as foot soldiers in their neverending struggle. They care nothing about the purported goals of their efforts and use whatever works best at the moment to achieve their ultimate (but never admitted) goal, the failure of human freedom.

Ed,
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
There is no “red core.”
The seeds of destruction were planted by communist influence operators. But that was 90 years ago. Today their message has spread and grown to become Politically Correct Progressivism.
There is no linkage to “communism.” PC-Progressivism is its own, stand-alone belief system now. It’s NOT Marxism. It’s NOT socialism. It is purely based on their belief system–anti-Normal-America.
Details:http://www.willingaccomplices.com

A few days back, a commenter criticized me for characterizing some of the visitors to this site as fringe lunatics. Well, here are those two above. I think they only forgot to lament how our grandchildren will be forced to speak “mexican” at gunpoint.
Considering the trolls we get, they could be plants. Whatever the case, this is sort of thing happens because most of us respond with indifference to this sort of thing and because we look the other way regarding certain guest posts that can be easily misconstrued to support all kinds of nonsense (e.g. posts on “global government takeovers”).

Maybe a little off topic
AlecM
You seem to have an interest in radiation physics (as I do). It may be a little off topic but I am curious about something that I have not been able to resolve properly from my various studies.
Namely:
1. Something cannot emit at a particular wavelength and absorb it at the same time.
2. If 1 is true then a black body (that emits broad spectrum) cannot absorb in the wavelengths that it emits.
3. 2 may not be correct because 2 black bodies will reach equilibrium eventually.
My quandary.

The physics is way more complicated. First of all, when CO_2 molecules absorb LWIR, they almost never have time to re-emit it (in an elastic scattering process) before they collide with other air molecules. The process associated with radiation in the atmosphere is therefore made up of two steps, not one (oversimplified picture as it assumes CO_2 is a perfect absorber in some band of frequencies and that N_2 and O_2 are perfectly transparent, etc):
a) CO_2 absorbs LWIR from somewhere — the ground, other CO_2 molecules, wherever. It collides with (probably) N_2 or (still quite likely) O_2 or (rather unlikely) H_2O or (very unlikely indeed) CO_2 and transfers some fraction of the energy it absorbed to it. Intermolecular collisions then rapidly share the energy. The absorbed LWIR basically “heats the atmosphere” as its primary first order effect. This process occurs more or less independent of the “temperature” of the CO_2 molecule (by which I mean the average local temperature of the gas, since molecules per se have no temperature), but very much depend on the temperature of the emitters that generate the LWIR photons. Note plural — emitters — so that this is not a thermodynamic equilibrium system with a single temperature and great care must be exercised to avoid making naive and incorrect statements concerning the laws of thermodynamics.
b) A collision with an atmospheric molecule excites a CO_2 molecule which emits LWIR in its absorption/emission band. The rate for this process does very much depend on the temperature of the underlying gas (and its pressure, its molecular composition, its density).
These two processes do not take place at anything like the same time, and the emitted photon is not the same quantum of energy that the absorbed photon was. The energy is basically completely thermalized into the local molecular system and loses all of its quantum identity in between the photon absorption event and the photon emission event.
The same collisions that share the energy around are responsible for broadening the otherwise very sharp emission/absorption lines so that CO_2 is better thought of or described by a quasi-continuous band of absorptive frequencies than by a pure collection of single lines, at least by humans. Computers can and do at least try to sum over the lines to the extent that they can be resolved and assigned a width, but our knowledge of this is a bit sketchy (see Grant Petty’s book, referenced above or below somewhere) in in practice one usually makes one of two or three choices of simplifying assumption that seem to mostly work, sort of, usually, in order to be able to do the computation a priori. Alternatively people use algebra to integrate over the band, again with some assumptions. I don’t mean to suggest that this is done poorly — things like Modtran work pretty well in correspondence with lab experiments — but that they aren’t precise and the result depends heavily on assumptions that may or may not be valid across the entire atmospheric column in all conditions.
Note that line by line computations and climate models do not compute or use “blackbody radiation” for atmospheric radiative physics, and use a moderately complicated version of it (one that accounts for things like differential emissivity, albedo, and more) if they use it at all for surface radiation. People use the “blackbody” (more like greybody) formula, e.g. Stefan-Boltzmann between two thermal reservoirs with simple assumptions for things like albedo and emissivity primarily when they want to develop an oversimplified/idealized model that one can present as an exercise in a physics class, or at any rate at that level. This is the basis for Petty’s presentation of a single layer model in chapter 6 of his book — it isn’t to suggest that this simple model is adequate to describe the actual atmosphere, only that it illustrates the essential physics of greenhouse warming, how interpolating any layer of matter between a heated object with a finite heat capacity and a surrounding cold(er) reservoir will cause the dynamical equilibrium temperature of the heated object to rise relative to its dynamical equilibrium temperature without the interpolated matter.
In this, the theory is bone simple, and very similar in its own way to the way your house works. Suppose you heat your house with a simple resistive electrical heater with no thermostat — you turn it on and it dumps a constant 2000 W of heat into your house, which is mixed up with some fans to keep the interior at a fairly uniform temperature. Your house will then heat up until is is strictly warmer than the outdoors, where its equilibrium temperature is the one that maintains the temperature gradient between the inside and the outside that causes the house to lose exactly 2000 W of heat so that the system is in detailed balance, gaining heat from the heater at the same rate that it loses it to the (now) colder surroundings.
If you do anything at all to impede the flow of heat from the inside of the house to the outside, it will cause your house to get warmer. Add insulation to the walls? Now you have lower thermal conductivity and the house has to get warmer to keep heat flowing out at the same rate that it flows in. Interrupt radiative heat loss by pulling the blinds on the windows? Same thing. Maintain dry walls instead of wet ones (to eliminate latent heat/evaporative transfer from inside to outside? Yup, warms the house. Turn off the fans (and hence reduce convection)? Now the interior of the house is a second heat conduction problem and on average, the air has to warm all the way back from the walls (where the temperature remains the same) to the heater, resulting in yes, warmer average internal temperatures. Conduction, convection, radiation, latent heat transport. Slow any of these between the heater and the outdoors near the boundary and you will increase the average temperature of the interior.
Seriously, the GHE is not rocket science, and is the consequence of applying the first and second laws of thermodynamics, not in violation of it. It is a textbook example problem. All of the real argument about it is not whether or not it exists and is reasonable, it is about whether or not we can compute it in the enormously complex “house” that is the Earth, where the heater and the “colder outdoors” are both outside the indefinite “boundary” of the house itself, so that what we are dealing with is a heater that is “on” different parts of every day in different parts of the world, that is constantly being screened by things like clouds, that heats dry desert rock and sand, wet lush vegetation, plowed fields, city rooftops and pavement, polar and seasonal ice and snow, and the oceans all enormously differentially with short wave radiation that the dry, cloud free atmosphere is quite transparent to and with equal variability in both surface and atmospheric emissivity, surface and atmospheric albedo, transparency and absorptivity at depth of the waters, latent heat, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, with conduction and convection and latent heat transport that forms known but chaotic patterns that dominate the constantly fluctuating temperature that results from heat gain and loss in all of the thermal reservoirs of the planet with their enormously diverse effective heat capacities and with its entire spectrum of thermal relaxation times.
In other words, the Earth is really less like your house with its comparatively simple interior heater, walls, windows, roof and more like your house after a madman with a chainsaw cuts random holes in the interior and exterior walls and slices half of the pipes so that the whole thing is bathed in a spray of water, in a highly gusty wind, while “heating” the house from the outside with a radiative heater carbon lamp mounted on a truck that slowly circles the house. In the meantime, evil little gnomes on the inside keep fixing this pipe and breaking another or slowly moving the interior walls around or changing the drapes on the windows, according to a complicated game of dice.
The question then is this: There is no doubt that if one takes the ideal house and installs double-pane Argon filled low-E windows in fixed walls, the searchlight outside will still get through but less heat can get out and so the interior will heat up. But in the real house with its crazy holes, its huge interior irregularly shaped swimming pool that covers 70% of its floor surface and is constantly sloshing around in strange patterns, with its little gnomes and their dice, with its moving walls and opening and closing doors, it seems rather plausible that the house could actually cool or not warm up very much at all if one upgrades all of the window glass. Or, it could warm up even more than expected. The honest thing to do is acknowledge that we cannot compute how much the house will warm from such a change because it is not very much like our ideal dream cottage house, our imaginary house that is simple enough to make simple predictions. When we try, we get answers that “look like a house responding to the change”, but that don’t agree very well with the actual response of the actual house we live in, and so we should not take these attempts to compute its future state very seriously. Even if we build a model that works to describe the last 200 years quite well, all it takes is one roll of the dice , the opening or closing of one interior door that we are assuming never move at all no matter what, and the model fails miserably for all times into the indefinite future.
rgb

RGBatDuke wrote: ” .. while “heating” the house from the outside with a radiative heater carbon lamp mounted on a truck that slowly circles the house,…”
Welcome to geocentrism, circa 1615. Galileo, please report to the inquisition.
Maybe you should have Mr Ptolemy, the truck driver, drive in little epicircles too? Also while psychotically playing with a vernier rheostat, minutely changing the voltage to the carbon lamp? The house is also bulit on soil like the Tower of Pisa, dynamically canting slowly at an odd angle of about 21 to -24 degrees.
– My sincerest apologies RB. I couldn’t help playing bit with your house analogy. I appreciated an enjoyed your hole-ly house analogy.

“Add insulation to the walls? Now you have lower thermal conductivity and the house has to get warmer to keep heat flowing out at the same rate that it flows in.”
The problem with analogies is, of course, that they are analogies. Since they describe analogous, rather than identical, situations, at some point they must fail. CO2 can be thought of as an insulator, in that it blocks some of the Earth’s radiation to space. But, it is also a radiator, which converts any heat transferred to it into radiation.
The Earth itself is radiatively cooled to space, but radiation is not the only pathway by which heat is transferred within the atmosphere. An analogy I have proffered before here is that of an automobile engine with its cooling system. Heat is transferred by coolant advection from the engine block to the radiator. Heat from the radiator is then carried away by the surrounding air.
Looking at things from a purely radiative perspective, if we make the radiator larger, it will impede radiative transfer directly from the engine block. So, we might naively think the engine block would get hotter. However, the greater surface area of the radiator now allows more heat to be advected away by the surrounding air.
Similarly, heat from the surface does not reach CO2 in the atmosphere exclusively by radiative pathways. Heat also reaches the CO2 molecules via convection from the surface. They are then able to radiate that heat away.
In a static atmosphere with no circulation, added CO2 would almost surely heat the surface. However, in a real atmosphere, added heat increases circulation, which transfers more heat through non-radiative means to be radiated away. In a particular atmospheric condition, it may well produce no net heating of the surface at all.
And, that is only one of the potential feedbacks which can null the insulative properties of CO2. Potential increase in cloud cover is another obvious one.

Bart says: “In a static atmosphere with no circulation, added CO2 would almost surely heat the surface. However, in a real atmosphere, added heat increases circulation, which transfers more heat through non-radiative means to be radiated away. In a particular atmospheric condition, it may well produce no net heating of the surface at all.”
Radiative-convective models are used for all serious calculations, so it is not as if this has not been considered. Also, your hypothesis of these increased heat transfers has consequences: What it amounts to saying is that the upper troposphere could warm without the surface warming. I don’t think there is any empirical evidence to support this happening. In fact, many skeptics claim that the upper troposphere, at least in the tropics, is warming less than models predict…not more (although the real truth is more complicated given the various issues with the data).
“And, that is only one of the potential feedbacks which can null the insulative properties of CO2. Potential increase in cloud cover is another obvious one.”
Or, it could work the other way: Cloud feedbacks could in fact magnify the effects of CO2.

Thanks rgbatduke.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the question I was asking. Perhaps I didn’t phrase my question correctly.
In a nutshell:
A blackbody/greybody is emitting 1000 photons per second at 5 microns from a particular point.
If an external agent is directing 10 photons per second @ 5 microns wavelength onto that point , then what would be the outcome in emission from the surface?
Would it be
a. 1000 photons
b. 1010 photons
c. 990 photons
Please explain your reasoning behind your answer.

joeldshore @ March 4, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Thank you for responding, Joel.“Radiative-convective models are used for all serious calculations, so it is not as if this has not been considered.”
Considered, no doubt. Conisdered properly, who can genuinely say? My point, however, was not to claim definitively that CO2 induce heating does not exist due to convection. It was to point out that the simple narrative involving radiative transfer does not compel that added CO2 must result in greater surface temperatures.
The AGW message has been that this is all pat, 19th century physics. Unassailable, and inevitable. It isn’t. And, the purveyors should have been more careful to weigh the evidence before they launched their jihad to remake society.“What it amounts to saying is that the upper troposphere could warm without the surface warming.”
Depends on the rate of dissipation, which would increase with increasing CO2. The increase could be utterly insignificant.“Or, it could work the other way: Cloud feedbacks could in fact magnify the effects of CO2.”
Highly unlikely. They shield much more sunlight from coming in than they prevent radiation going back out.
Again, the main point is that there is no requirement that increasing CO2 must produce greater surface temperatures. It was an act of faith for the climate science community to leap to the conclusion. The evidence now before us indicates that it was a foolish leap.

joeldshore
March 4, 2015 at 5:25 pm
/////////////////////////////////////////
Joel, Bart is of course right and you are wrong. (But then you are a warmulonian, this is expected).
Those radiative/convective models you mention were cooked up but with one purpose, they were designed to erase the accepted meteorology of radiative subsidence from history. It is these false models that are used to parametrize energy transport in the vertical dimension in GCMs, which cannot do CFD in the vertical dimension.
Radiative subsidence is a critical component of tropospheric convective circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and polar cells. Obviously if radiative gas concentration increases, so does the speed of tropospheric convective circulation due to increased radiative subsidence. This circulation is the primary energy transport away from the surface. Holding its rate constant was a critical factor in the outright lies of the climastrologists. Those “radiative / convective models” you mention? They are all unmitigated garbage. They invoke “immaculate convection” ie: convective circulation that remains constant for increasing radiative gas concentration.
Want to prove that 97% of climastrologists are not total assclowns Joel? Go on then. Give us a link to the post 2000 papers showing tropospheric convective circulation increasing in speed for increased radiative gas concentration!
You can’t do that can you? Too many sceptics are engineers. We know “what you did last summer”. You should know this – Sceptics will destroy every activist, journalist or politician who ever promoted or sought to profit by this inane hoax. Every. Last. One. There will be no exemptions or excuses.
You and yours called us “holocaust deniers”.
Sceptics will never forgive, and the Internet will never forget.

Alex,
Some basics:
A blackbody will absorb all radiation falling on it. That is the definition of a blackbody. It doesn’t matter where the radiation comes from, or what the wavelength is, or what the temperature of the irradiating source is, the blackbody will absorb all the radiation falling on it.
On the emission side, a blackbody above absolute zero will emit radiation over a continuous, infinite range of wavelengths. The intensity emitted at each wavelength is given by Planck’s Law and the spectrum distribution will follow the characteristic ‘Planck curve’. It depends only on the temperature of the blackbody.https://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/planck-1000k-300k.png
So, now you can answer your own questions, I hope.

The very basics are 19th century physics. But, yes, the details involve some 20th-century physics too. Does that make it less believable?

“Or, it could work the other way: Cloud feedbacks could in fact magnify the effects of CO2.”
Highly unlikely. They shield much more sunlight from coming in than they prevent radiation going back out.

For someone who is wants to be so careful about not making unjustifiable assumptions in some context, you certainly make a lot of them when it suits your purposes! First of all, it is by no means obvious that warmer temperatures means MORE clouds. As the temperature increases, yes, more water evaporates, but the saturation vapor pressure also increases…So, in fact, in the global average it is predicted that RELATIVE humidity remains about the same or even decreases slightly. So, the effect on cloudiness is not so obvious.
Second of all, the fact that clouds have a net cooling effect overall hides the more complicated details, e.g., that low clouds cool more than they warm but high clouds warm more than they cool. So, how each type of cloud changes under warming conditions is what is important.

Again, the main point is that there is no requirement that increasing CO2 must produce greater surface temperatures. It was an act of faith for the climate science community to leap to the conclusion. The evidence now before us indicates that it was a foolish leap.

It wasn’t a leap of faith. It was based on evidence. And, despite the fact that there is variability in the trend, most scientists agree that they evidence remains very strong.

They invoke “immaculate convection” ie: convective circulation that remains constant for increasing radiative gas concentration.
Want to prove that 97% of climastrologists are not total assclowns Joel? Go on then. Give us a link to the post 2000 papers showing tropospheric convective circulation increasing in speed for increased radiative gas concentration!
You can’t do that can you?

Actually, to my knowledge, no serious quantitative modeling of climate change assumes that convective circulation remains constant. What is your evidence to the contrary?
Bart says:

“What it amounts to saying is that the upper troposphere could warm without the surface warming.”
Depends on the rate of dissipation, which would increase with increasing CO2. The increase could be utterly insignificant.

I have no idea what you are saying here. As you admitted, the only significant way that energy is transferred to or from the Earth/atmosphere system is via radiation. So, if you alter the balance such that the Earth is now emitting back out into space less than it absorbs, then some place has to warm to the point where that balance is restored. Invoking “convection” doesn’t get you away from this fact. (I am leaving aside clouds because that is a separate discussion…We both agree that changes in cloudiness can modulate the incoming and outgoing radiation, as can changes in concentration of water vapor and so forth.)

“The very basics are 19th century physics. But, yes, the details involve some 20th-century physics too. Does that make it less believable?”
But, this is still just the basics. There are many links in the chain from IR absorption to increasing surface temperatures. It isn’t inevitable.“First of all, it is by no means obvious that warmer temperatures means MORE clouds.”
Touche. However, the process would have to be self-limiting in some fashion, or cloudless skies would be the norm. The process would feed back upon itself – higher temperatures, fewer clouds, higher temperatures, fewer clouds, until all the clouds were gone.“It was based on evidence.”
Very weak evidence. Nothing even remotely conclusive.“And, despite the fact that there is variability in the trend, most scientists agree that they evidence remains very strong.”
Perhaps most highly interested scientists. But, those are precisely the ones who are most deeply vested in the narrative, and stand to lose enormous prestige and credibility when it is recognized to have failed. Their opinions are therefore formed under duress, and cannot be considered unbiased.“I have no idea what you are saying here.”
Tropospheric heat is manifested as the balance between intake and dissipation. The more efficiently input energy is dissipated, the lower the heat content will be for a given intake. So, sure, the troposphere could warm from increased convection from the surface, but the warming could be insignificant, as the ability to radiate heat away increases with increasing CO2 concentration.

Touche. However, the process would have to be self-limiting in some fashion, or cloudless skies would be the norm. The process would feed back upon itself – higher temperatures, fewer clouds, higher temperatures, fewer clouds, until all the clouds were gone.

This same argument is the one that comes up about any feedback. The argument fails because it assumes that all infinite series diverge…Or, if you want to consider it as self-limiting, it is self-limiting in the same sense that the sum 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + … is self-limiting in that it converges to 2.

So, sure, the troposphere could warm from increased convection from the surface, but the warming could be insignificant, as the ability to radiate heat away increases with increasing CO2 concentration.

CO2 does not increase the ability of the earth-atmosphere system to radiate heat away; it decreases it. Your argument makes no sense in the context of atmospheric radiative physics which has been understood for the past half-century. You can’t invoke convection to violate the energy balance between the earth system and the rest of the universe.

“it is self-limiting in the same sense that the sum 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + “
This is the usual misapprehension by non-practitioners. A sum such as you are showing would, in fact, be indicative of dominant negative feedback. Were the cloud feedback positive, and yet clouds settled out in this way, it would be indicative of a greater negative feedback overcoming the positive.
Either way, you come out with the same result: if the clouds are not governing temperatures, then an even more powerful process is. And, no, it isn’t T^4 radiation – T^4 radiation is not enough to stabilize this system by itself.“CO2 does not increase the ability of the earth-atmosphere system to radiate heat away; it decreases it. “
Not if the heat to be radiated from it is carried to it through non-radiative means. CO2 only decreases the ability of the surface to radiate directly to space. But, if the heat is carried to the CO2 layer by other means, then it enables that heat to be dissipated to space.
Again, I make the analogy to the car engine and radiator system. The heat emanating radiatively from the engine block is impeded by the radiator from getting out. A bigger radiator blocks more heat radiated from the engine from getting out. But, the convection to the radiator from the engine is overwhelmingly larger, and the larger radiator ends up cooling the engine.

@Bart
..“The heat emanating radiatively from the engine block is impeded by the radiator from getting out”
..
Obviously you are not well versed in how an internal combustion engine operates.
The radiator at most is about four or five square feet in area, located ahead of the engine block. Heat from the block can radiate to the top, bottom and sides of the engine compartment that are not blocked by the radiator. Secondly the thermostat in an internal combustion engine opens at about 180 degrees F, and the block can attain much higher temperatures, especially in the vicinity of the valves on the cylinder head. So, air flow that passes through the radiator can reach upwards of 250 degrees F, but the engine block is still much warmer than the cooling fluid resulting in heat flow from the block to the very hot air exiting the radiator. (Not to mention the heat radiated from oil pan at the bottom of the engine)
You need a better example, one that doesn’t render your argument illogical.
(PLEASE use a legitimate email address, per site Policy. The one you are using has failed five (5) separate email verifiers. -mod.)

Robert Grumbine @ March 7, 2015 at 11:20 am
What a stupid yet overweening comment.“Heat from the block can radiate to the top, bottom and sides of the engine compartment that are not blocked by the radiator.”
Doesn’t matter. The temperature in the engine compartment is determined by the balance of all heat flux in and out. The radiative egress is partially blocked by the radiator. Thus, that blockage raises the temperature at which the balance occurs from what it otherwise would be.
With the convective exchange, the radiator ends up shifting the balance point far lower, but that does not eliminate the radiative blockage, it just overwhelms it.
I don’t know if this is a case of missing the forest for the trees, or just a misbegotten attempt to show off… whatever it is you are trying to show off. The only way the example is illogical is if you believe automobile cooling systems are intended to trap heat in the engine. But, the illogic is not on my side in that case.

IPCC pseudoscience is based on 50 years’ incorrect radiative physics teaching in US Atmospheric Science [from 1996, Goody and Yung]. This is to claim a radiant emittance, aka exitance, aka radiosity what is predicted by the Stefan-Boltzmannn equation, is a real energy flux, when it is the potential radiative energy flux vector, in a vacuum, to a radiation sink at Absolute Zero.
Actually, this is so untrue as to truly boggle the mind. It is difficult to conceive of a falser statement. The people who do climate research may be mistaken, but they are not all idiots and they don’t make trivial mistakes at this level. If you have the slightest interest in learning what physics they do use, you might obtain a copy of Grant Petty’s A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation. You might also note that it is a first course, and that the underlying physics is just one of the ingredients in the General Circulation Models that attempt to solve the Navier-Stokes equation(s) on a global scale decades into the future.
On the other hand, if you just want to invent dead horses so that you can beat them, feel free to proceed. Some where in there, though, you should think about the easily verified fact that one can point an IR spectrograph straight up at night (and of course by day, but during the day there is also sunlight where at night there is only back radiation) and directly observe the back radiation you claim does not exist. Indeed, in the equation you assert that they do not use above, http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Toft-CO2-PDO.jpg the back radiation term, in the limit that the air is a “perfect absorber”, which it is not, any more than the Earth’s surface is a perfect emitter. Petty’s book, however, contains numerous direct spectrographs taken at the top of the atmosphere looking down and bottom of the atmosphere looking up, that are absolutely consistent with the greenhouse theory and indeed in my fairly well informed opinion constitute simple empirical proof that the radiative physics associated with it is at least approximately correct.
There is, of course, a lot more to it than just this. When one goes to actually compute the GHE in a line by line climate model that doesn’t really use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation per se at all, one has to deal with the nonlinearity of the radiative absorptivity from the bottom of the atmosphere (where the lines are pressure broadened) to the top (where at some point they shift to being doppler broadened). The end result of the (still approximated) computation of the physics is the familiar logarithmic dependency of expected greybody surface temperature with atmospheric CO_2 concentration in a saturated atmosphere.
Note well that applying this theory naively — assuming that nothing else changes, no feedbacks, positive or negative, the entire system continuing to function without any discrete shifts or chaotic reorganizations but under the slightly increased forcing — predicts a total climate sensitivity of somewhere between 1 and 1.5 C of total average surface warming per doubling of CO_2. The best fit of a pure log model to HadCRUT4 from 1850 to the present with a reasonable estimate of atmospheric CO_2 across the entire interval suggests a TCS of 1.8 C, but the error bars and natural (or at any rate, non-CO_2-driven) variation in the data are substantial and even though this best fit is a damn good fit and hence moderately compelling, the model fails utterly if one attempts to hindcast into the remote past and ceteris paribus is, after all, a logical fallacy unless backed by hard science, so its utility as a predictor of the future is certainly open to question.http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/cCO2oft.pdf
Either way, this very simple one significant parameter fit (both the data and the logarithmic fit have no fixed vertical origin so the parameter that matches the two doesn’t really count) indicates that there is little reason to believe based on the data — to the extent that HadCRUT4 is an honestly built projection of the data, which is itself arguable either way, but suppose that it is — that warming for any “scenario” through RCP 6.5 is likely to be generally noticeable, let alone catastrophic.
Don’t get me wrong. The GCMs suck. They get lots of things wrong, and hide almost all of their problems under a shroud of unlikely statistical assumptions that add up to “none of the problems will matter if we just average everything without any regard to how well or poorly a GCM performs in comparison to the real world”. There are good reasons to think that the problem they are trying to solve (which is, after all, the most complex implementation ever of an attempted solution to a Grand Challenge math problem that to this day defies solution by the most brilliant minds on the planet) cannot be solved at this time, and may not be solvable for thirty to fifty years of Moore’s Law growth and improvements in the underlying science (if then — it is a hard problem). But their problem is not that “they use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation incorrectly assuming a T=0 reservoir”. They start with line-by-line radiative dynamics and add in much, much more, including quite a lot of the bulk heat transport you assert that they are not dealing with.
Do they get this right? Probably not — at the granularity of the computations in my opinion it would be a miracle if they got it right, and the model results suck compared to the real world so I think my opinion here is in good agreement with reality. But don’t create straw men just so that you can set them on fire and thereby demonstrate your ignorance or I’ll have to get out my logical fallacy bingo card:http://lifesnow.com/bingo/
and see if I can’t pop out a winner on the spot.
rgb

rgb, thanks for the logical fallacy bingo table. Very convenient reference. I also seem to remember a WattsUp article that indicated that some models were simple mathematical renderings/curve fits that really didn’t include all the physics (but can’t find the article).

IMO it is inarguable that HadCRUT4 is dishonestly built.
Ah, but I’m going to argue with it, and to mis-quote Johnson, “Thus I refute you…”;-)
Seriously, I personally wouldn’t argue with you, but there are those that would, at least about the “honestly” part. I think that the builders/maintainers are not trying to commit scientific fraud per se, that they really believe that their work is a reasonable attempt to reconstruct the temperature anomaly from past imperfect data. If they have sinned, it is perhaps in having too strong an opinion on what the temperature in the past “should” have looked like according to a theory that they believe in before they build the model, which produces a powerful and insensible tendency to inadvertently permit confirmation bias into the model building and treatment of the data. This then establishes a positive feedback loop — the exaggerated warming of the data in their anomaly model (and perhaps the understatement of the estimated error, especially in the past) leads to excessive confidence that warming of thus-and-such has occurred, which then reinforces the next round of confirmation-bias driven changes to the warming model, without anyone openly acknowledging even to themselves that in the end they are fitting models to models, not a single model to data.
That and not including a UHI correction are its big sins, IIRC. I don’t know what to make of the latter, but not including it at all is still better than GISS, which includes it but somehow ends up with it making the wrong sign of correction to the majority of contributing stations. It is difficult for me to understand how the UHI should warm the actual present temperature relative to the past (almost) anywhere, and suspect that an easy 0.1 to 0.3 C of the warming GISS reports (and ditto HadCRUTx) from 1850 to the present is pure UHI, with another 0.1 very likely to be asymmetric data selection bias and bias caused by the changing of thermometric measuring systems over the decades and “drift” in the assignment of the reference temperature from which “anomalies” are computed. To me it is telling indeed that we cannot compute global average temperature within one whole degree K today (in spite of it often being given to five significant figures or asserting precision on the order of 0.01 to 0.001 C as is necessary to make claims about oceans “eating the missing heat”) while “confidently” asserting a knowledge of the global temperature anomaly — compared to a reference very much in the present — in 1850 to 0.3 to 0.4 C then, 0.1 to 0.2 C now.
At this point the whole issue is moot. Given clear evidence, truly global evidence to truly high precision, that the troposphere and SST is warming only very slowly, if “global” surface temperature anomalies continue to deviate from LTT, so much the worse for the major global surface temperature anomaly models. At some point the climate community will no longer be able to put off facing the music and resolving the conflict between the two records. At that time if not earlier and mandated by congressional hearings and subpoenas and the like, perhaps we will get a clearer picture of precisely where the errors lie and what might have motivated them.
In the meantime, HadCRUT4 is comparatively straightforward (relative to GISS, certainly) and goes all the way back to 1850 even if they are enormously optimistic in their error estimates back then. GISS is only going to get cleaned up if and when a US administration fires the director and appoints an outsider as chief with a strong suggestion that they include rational skeptics (as opposed to “dragonslayers”:-) in an overall review of their products. Ditto, in fact, for WMO and Hadley and NOAA. Right now, as Dr. Ball has pointed out above, climate science is a perfect model for how not ever to fund major research, with everybody in the entire field having a vested interest in a single conclusion, the conclusion that is necessary to justify the existence of the entire field and its rational support at anything more than the most paltry levels of research funding.
If there were no “emergency”, climate science would quite correctly be in the same boat as the research being done into detecting and possibly intervening in the trajectories of near-earth-orbit asteroids. Even a medium sized meteor hitting a major metropolitan area is a very unlikely, but very catastrophically disastrous if it does happen possibility. It is very much a “black swan” event, and it is quite reasonable to gradually invest in “insurance” against it to the extent that the investment itself doesn’t become a catastrophic burden. The same is true of climate science. If the climate shifts suddenly up or down or sideways (constant temperature but alteration of rainfall patterns could be far more disastrous than warming or cooling with reliable rainfall) it could be and has been in the past very expensive, potentially catastrophically expensive. Droughts and floods in the last 165 years have killed literally millions of people (although not so many compared to human wars, plagues, poverty in general, and many other causes). Those events are far beyond our ability to assign to particular causes, if the term has any meaning whatsoever given the chaotic nature of the climate and weather, and they are utterly beyond our ability to control, but humans invented God as the cause of the weather and climate disasters (and all the other things beyond their control) to give themselves the illusion of control via supplication and prayer and cutting up animals and sometimes humans on blood-soaked altars and other ritual magic.
It’s worth a small investment to gradually improve our ability to prophecy the future from its current state of basically reading the entrails of a slaughtered chicken in such a way as to preserve one’s status as the tribe’s witch doctor to — perhaps — something with some tiny smidgen of skill a decade or two out. The notion of prediction 50 or 100 years out is actively funny, or would be if it weren’t so very, very expensive and sad.
rgb

I have explained the fundamental defect, dating from 1964.
If I am wrong, prove it.
The S-B equation predicts the Potential Radiative Energy Flux in a Vacuum to a Radiation Sink at Absolute Zero’, not a real energy flux…..:o)
Engineers like me use the vector sum of Radiant Emittances to predict real IR flux.
Maybe we are wrong and the aeropanes will suddenly fall out of the sky, and the power plants and rolling mills will suddenly stop working!

Dr. Brown,
you have typed an enormous amount in defence of the unproven atmospheric radiative GHE hypothesis. Much of what you write about radiative physics I consider correct. But not this –

“The people who do climate research may be mistaken, but they are not all idiots and they don’t make trivial mistakes at this level.”

– because that is exactly what they have done. They have made two very basic mistakes that complete invalidate the “Basic physics” of their “settled science”. The two foundation claims of those promoting the idea of a NET radiative GHE were –
1. The sun alone cannot heat the surface of the planet higher than an average of 255K.
2. IR radiation emitted from the atmosphere slows the cooling rate of the surface, causing average surface temperatures to be 33K higher than the initial 255K.
– in terms of net effects both these claims are false.
In the case of the first the 255K assumption is bases solely on putting 240 w/m2 of solar radiation into the Stefan-Boltzmann equation with emissivity and absorptivity set to unity. But 71% of the surface of our planet is ocean. It is intermittently illuminated by solar SW, is SW translucent and IR opaque. The Stefan-Boltzmann equation is completely inapplicable! Our oceans are an extreme SW selective surface. The sun alone would drive them to a surface Tmax of 355K or beyond were it not for cooling by our radiatively cooled atmosphere.
In the case of the second claim, incident LWIR cannot slow the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool. Again 71% of the surface. So no, DWLWIR cannot be responsible for raising ocean temperatures by 33K.
You write –“so that what we are dealing with is a heater that is “on” different parts of every day in different parts of the world, that is constantly being screened by things like clouds, that heats dry desert rock and sand, wet lush vegetation, plowed fields, city rooftops and pavement, polar and seasonal ice and snow, and the oceans all enormously differentially with short wave radiation that the dry, cloud free atmosphere is quite transparent to and with equal variability in both surface and atmospheric emissivity, surface and atmospheric albedo, transparency and absorptivity at depth of the waters, latent heat, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, with conduction and convection and latent heat transport that forms known but chaotic patterns that dominate the constantly fluctuating temperature that results from heat gain and loss in all of the thermal reservoirs of the planet with their enormously diverse effective heat capacities and with its entire spectrum of thermal relaxation times.”
– which is really just a load of “flappy hands”, because there is no NET atmospheric radiative GHE on this planet. And no, it’s not about ‘feedbacks”, “complexities” or “chaos”. It’s very simple – the oceans are an extreme SW selective surface not a near blackbody. The climastrologists were idiots and they did make fundamental mistakes at the most basic of levels.
To determine the net effect of our radiatively cooled atmosphere is simple. We know current average surface temperatures from observation -288K. We can determine “surface without radiative atmosphere” average temperature from empirical experiment – 312K. Bingo! The net effect of our radiatively cooled atmosphere is surface cooling. No need for “flappy hands”, unless you are a lukewarmer looking for face saving excuses.

Konrad 2:29 pm – Simple, well documented tests show Konrad is the one being flappy handed about the basic science. Not using Dr. Feynman’s scientific method is Konrad’s major mistake.“The Stefan-Boltzmann equation is completely inapplicable!”
Simple, well documented testing shows S-B is applicable to all diffraction negligible, positive radii real materials at all frequency ranges at all temperatures all the time. In particular, easy to find tests show oceans are diffraction negligible, mostly positive radii selective surface AND near black body refuting Konrad’s claims. Precision, accurate, calibrated tests refuting Konrad have been carried out by multiple experimenters out on the deep oceans.“…incident LWIR cannot slow the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool.”
Not true, simple well documented scientific method testing shows Konrad is completely wrong here (by Grant Petty text too!). Konrad just needs to read (& comprehend) the easy to find references. All of Konrad’s tests confirm the basic science once Dr. Feynman’s methods are employed.
As so eloquently written by rgb at 8:15am: Konrad if you “just want to invent dead horses so that you can beat them, feel free to proceed.” Classic.
——
AlecM 12:32pm: “If I am wrong, prove it.”
Already proven, long ago. Dr. Planck’s testing described in his original paper on the subject is sufficient to prove you are wrong, available on the internet. You can see the rgb 8:15am ref. by Grant Petty for a modern version. S-B applicability is limited only by Dr. Planck’s rules for diffraction negligible, positive radii real material.

Trick
March 4, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Thick “Simple, well documented tests show Konrad is the one being flappy handed about the basic science. Not using Dr. Feynman’s scientific method is Konrad’s major mistake”
Where are those tests? Nowhere, that’s where. Of course I use Freymans method. I work in design and engineering. My work is in global demand. Yours is not. Got the picture, Thick?
Thick – ”Simple, well documented testing shows S-B is applicable to all diffraction negligible, positive radii real materials at all frequency ranges at all temperatures all the time. In particular, easy to find tests show oceans are diffraction negligible, mostly positive radii selective surface AND near black body refuting Konrad’s claims. Precision, accurate, calibrated tests refuting Konrad have been carried out by multiple experimenters out on the deep oceans.”
Utter garbage. Did you seriously think IR measurements near zenith over materials within the Hohlraum of our radiative atmosphere counted? Are you as stupid as Dr. Brown?!
K – “…incident LWIR cannot slow the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool.”
Thick – “Not true, simple well documented scientific method testing shows Konrad is completely wrong here (by Grant Petty text too!). Konrad just needs to read (& comprehend) the easy to find references. All of Konrad’s tests confirm the basic science once Dr. Feynman’s methods are employed.
Oh please, were you gong to crawl back to Minnett? I use Dr. Feymans’ methods to the letter. I ran the empirical experiments. Gorebull warbling, your religion, is a physical impossibility.
Squealing about publication Trick.? Go on. Amuse me. Pal review is part of scientific bureaucracy, not scientific method. I’ll just laugh.
I’m not just out to destroy climastrology, but Pal-review as well.
It is imperative that I and other Heritics write the truth on the web, years before it is accepted in “mainstream” journals. That is what these blogs are about Trick. A permanent record of who was right, and who was wrong decades before the “pal-review” lovies folded.
You throw your (warmulonian) support behind Dr, Brown? Laughable! This is not about sides, this is about right or wrong. Brown, Lindzen and Spencer got it wrong. I got it right. No amount of politics on your worthless warmulonian part can ever change the facts. I am smarter than you “Trick”, smarter than Lindzen, Spencer or Brown. No game you try can ever work.

The Pew research suggests that, whilst concern over climate change has increased, that for security, terrorism, military strength etc. has grown more.
As Mencken said, governments need hobgoblins. Security plays very well when people can see the antics of ISIS on TV and the internet. Not so easy to sell the hobgoblin of climate change to people buried under snow.
This will change. Expect more concern on economy and jobs as the world heads towards economic collapse, and on security as the US pushes for war in Ukraine.

Putin knows he can take all of Ukraine and Obama and Merkle will not respond militarily. The best options right now are economic. Constrain Putin by keeping oil below $60/barrel.
But Obama will work against the national security interests of the West, since his political base is anti-carbon and cheap oil is their biggest enemy. This is very similar to his appeasement of Iran and its nuclear uranium enrichment program.That program is very dangerous to Western security and an existential threat to Not just Israel but also Saudi Arabia. But Obama is more interested in punishing Israel to appease his ardent pro-Palestine base, than he is on defending Mid-East regional security.
As for the IPCC and science, Dr Ball correctly identifies the biggest threat to honest climate science in the US… John Holdren. From his perch in the WH, Holdren has and will continue to use research funding from the NSF and NIH as a hammer to further a political agenda … nailing those scientists who identify the many deficiencies in the scientific understanding of the role of GHGs and Earth’s climate. And like the W.Soon example shows, use of funding and public vendettas is an attempt to silence scientists who may be thinking of opposing the pseudo science now on rampant display in leading journals like Science and Nature.

Subtlety didn’t work. Ok. I don’t suppose it occurs to anyone that Dr. Ball is compensating? No, of course not, that would be truly tasteless.
Oh dear.[ I chose the title image, complimentary to Dr. Pachauri’s recent revelations of lecherous behavior for which he’s in hot water. Get over yourself Brandon – Anthony]

They’re disgusting. He did the right thing to step down. I don’t know what legal jurisdiction his case falls under, but I cannot imagine it’s one that doesn’t adhere to at least the principle of innocence until guilt is proven by due process of law, if not a US Constitutional 5th amendment-type injunction against the gummint being able to compel self-incrimination.
The court of public opinion works differently of course. As such a good part my jibes are a pedestrian appeal to hypocrisy. I really shouldn’t have to spell it out if you’re capable of unguided introspection and are willing to be honest about what you read here on a daily basis.

What do you require, a twitter photo showing the guy in action?

No more than I needed to consult a dictionary when Slick Willie uttered “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” But my ultimate opinion of his moral failures as a decent human being have little impact on my view of his effectiveness as a politician, much in the same way that Iran Contra doesn’t diminish my opinion that Reagan was equivalently competent.

Per the photo, the E-mails suggest the guy has a permanent one, at least until the Arctic melts. Semi crudely funny, but funny never the less.

I think it’s absolutely crudely hilarious. The humor works on so many other levels for me that would be awfully damn difficult to work up any semblance of genuine indignation even if I wanted to.

I assume you are the same Brandon who recently posted this in the Climate BS site Hotwhopper:
“I’d like to think that only 97% of my belief in AGW is based on native trust of the scientific method and peer-review, but the inconvenient truth of the matter is that I probably understand less than a tenth of a percent of all the relevant science there is to know.”
At least you were honest here.
The point being made here is why the heck should we rely on the results of government bureaucrats instructed to confirm the whims of their (mostly lefty or ecoloon) political masters?

Peter Miller,
You missed the best part of that thread: Sou taking me down a peg for over-estimating my comprehension. 1/10,000th of a percent comprehension would probably be overstating it.

The point being made here is why the heck should we rely on the results of government bureaucrats instructed to confirm the whims of their (mostly lefty or ecoloon) political masters?

I do my best to tune out the pols and read the primary literature. I also tend to be wary of people asking me whether I’m still beating my wife. Not having expertise of my own requires the use of such heuristics, and all the fallibility that entails, but I don’t see that I have any other rational option. Best I can do is be constantly mindful that, yes, governments are largely controlled by self-interested whores for campaign finance $$$ and that nobody is better at fooling me than myself.

Peter Miller,
“Believing” in AGW is fine — for the religiously inclined.
I personally think AGW exists, based on physics. But I don’t worry about it. CO2 is such a minuscule forcing at current atmospheric concentrations, that worrying about it make the worrier look like a worrying worrywart. And human CO2 emissions are only a tiny part of annual emissions from natural sources. But worriers will worry. They can’t help themselves.
There are so many more important thing to worry about, that worrying about AGW is a mental disorder. Now that is something to worry about!

I found that conversation rather fascinating, but did not bother to comment on it at the time.
It is very interesting that apparently well read people (scientists, in some instances) are stating there that they only understand a small fraction of the field, but fully accept that the said science is settled and all the alarmism from those cobbled together, adjusted and modeled data sets is fully justified.
To the point that they feel there should be no further discussion on the topic.
Considering that almost every other alarmist scientist may be operating from a similar level of individual knowledge on the broader topic of climate change, it amazes me that there seema to not the slightest degree of doubt in the collective alarmist mind.

worrying about AGW is a mental disorder.
========
I don’t worry about AGW. I worry that some people will use it as an excuse to “do good”.
The problem with “do good” is that people in power have routinely used this excuse for the worst excesses in history. Holy Crusades of all fashion result from “doing good”.
Al Capone was doing good, making jobs for people during the Great Depression. Hitler was doing good, saving the German people from the hardship of the Treaty of Versailles. The Inquisition was doing good, saving people from their sins. The list goes on and on and on. Find any great man-made calamity in history and almost always you will find the root cause was “doing good”.
The problem with “doing good” is that it removes the normal checks and balances. We fail to consider that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You cannot “do good” without also doing harm. “doing good” blinds us to the harm we are also doing, until long after the fact.
Sure we can reduce human emissions of CO2. But why are we emitting CO2 in the first place? Because for most people, the benefits of emitting CO2 far outweigh the harm of not emitting CO2. Thus, any attempt to impose restriction on CO2 in the name of “doing good” are likely to do more harm than good. Largely in ways that we cannot yet predict.

Sure we can reduce human emissions of CO2. But why are we emitting CO2 in the first place? Because for most people, the benefits of emitting CO2 far outweigh the harm of not emitting CO2. Thus, any attempt to impose restriction on CO2 in the name of “doing good” are likely to do more harm than good. Largely in ways that we cannot yet predict.

Fred, if I were gay and I weren’t married, I’d propose to you sight unseen simply on the basis of your beautiful, utterly sane prose. (Fortunately for both of us, I’m heterosexual and have been married for 36 years:-)
I mean, this is such a “duh”, such a cosmic bitchslap across the forehead, why is it that people just don’t get it, and especially don’t get the fact that by treating CO_2 the same way that they might treat a real evil with no serious upside, like serial killer child-raping cannibals, they are in fact committing a great evil themselves by condemning the poorest 1/3 of the 7 billion people on the planet to continue to live in the 18th century — mud or straw huts, cooking over dried animal dung, starvation never more than a bad month away, diseased, usually completely disenfranchised of human rights and governed by a brutal dictator or religious nepotism, and with absolutely no prospects for a brighter future.
We visit India — a country that is really trying to lift its own population up out of this state and into the 21st century — and see a man plowing a dusty field behind a scrawny bullock and living in a mud hut with his entire extended family, supported by that one lonely field, and think “How quaint, how beautiful, how interesting” and snap pictures of it without ever asking ourselves how we would feel about trusting our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren to the fragile state of that one field and the health of our one bullock, drinking unfiltered unboiled water from the local village tank, excreting and urinating every day outdoors in the same field we plow that is just uphill of the village tank, using a crude lamp made from terra-cotta, a twist of cotton, and a tablespoon or so of cooking oil as all of the light for the entire household at night, and nearly naked to the elements in both dry season and the rainy monsoon.
And this is a wealthy man, a landowner. He gives alms to the truly poor and needy.
Here’s an idea for a reality TV show. Forget “Survivor” — that was never more than a carefully scripted show morally equivalent to championship wrestling, all costumes and posturing. Let’s try “Life trade”, a show where two families completely trade lives for a year. One from (say) suburban America, a traditional one-family dwelling, and one from the ten foot square block of Mumbai sidewalk that constitutes a fair example of a one-family dwelling for a staggeringly large number of humans around the world:http://www.hardrainproject.com/thumbnail.php?im=SP1023227.jpg&type=Uhttp://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/families-living-in-slum-mumbai-india-high-res-stock-photography/98448799
Is cheap energy “the solution” to this problem? No, it is simply one essential part of the solution. Almost all poverty is, at the heart, energy poverty. Each and every measure taken that raises the cost of energy, especially electricity, is paid for in human misery.
rgb

ferd,
Agree. The scientific world really “did good” by banning the Nobel Prize-winning insecticide DDT, didn’t it? Too bad 30 million (and still counting) persons (mostly black Africans) had to die so people could feel good about their efforts.

To the point that they feel there should be no further discussion on the topic.

Surely one can find cases of warmunists saying such things without further qualification. But I am amenable to sentiments along the lines of it being pointless to bend over backward to assuage the angst of folks who declare by fiat that “adjusted and modeled data sets” are smoking gun instances of scientific malpractice.

… it amazes me that there seema to not the slightest degree of doubt in the collective alarmist mind.

Then you should be able to understand my argument here. I wouldn’t bet on you copping to it, however.

I don’t worry about AGW. I worry that some people will use it as an excuse to “do good”.

I’ve often thought it would be refreshing for a politician on the campaign trail — which is 99.9% of the time these days — to stand at the podium (or, tweet as is more fashionable these days):I’m a calculating liar and completely amoral money-grubbing scumbag, which is exactly why you need me in office to get done what you’re asking me to do.
Seeking the Democratic nomination for Ohio Governor in the early ’80s, Jerry Springer very nearly went there:
A delightful additional detail is that the check ended up bouncing due to lack of funds. He lost the primary, badly. The sex scandal was probably a factor, not least because I have it on reasonably good authority that Dick Celeste was a notoriously dirty campaign trickster, but was also simply more experienced and better known statewide, having already done a 4-year stint as Lt. Gov.
Lest anyone think Springer was foolish to have even tried playing that card, the other note is that back home in ’75, he won a 1-year term as Cincinnati Mayor by a landslide … after he bounced that check to a hooker. Apparently his immediate and non-dithering admission of the misdeed to the press said more about his integrity to voters than the indiscretion of paying for sex and leaving behind a rubber paper trail as evidence of it.
I don’t “worry” about noble cause corruption so much as I look askance at partisan posturing along the lines of it only being the other side’s shit that stinks. A more fantastic self-delusion I cannot imagine, and one of the poorest of poor “arguments” I can think of.

Brandon,
No thought or mention of smoking guns, simply noting that IS the data we are working with, and that IS (hockey sticks, etc, ‘hottest year, eva!’) what is put up in the MSM as definitive proof of coming disaster (along with trumpetings of storms, droughts, fires all caused by AGW).

No thought or mention of smoking guns, simply noting that IS the data we are working with, and that IS (hockey sticks, etc, ‘hottest year, eva!’) what is put up in the MSM as definitive proof of coming disaster (along with trumpetings of storms, droughts, fires all caused by AGW).

No tea leaves. Use the data you have.
Just don’t over-interpret it and reach premature conclusions then announce ‘the science is in, there will be no more debate’.
For the record, I am sitting on the fence; I don’t know if it is warming significantly or not, and I am of the opinion that the many, varied and diverse ‘experts’ don’t either.
It is also my opinion that this whole shebang may be the worst handling of scientific research in modern times. If they are in fact correct they have already got most of the people offside by exaggerating the scale and certainty of the evidence.

No tea leaves. Use the data you have. Just don’t over-interpret it and reach premature conclusions then announce ‘the science is in, there will be no more debate’.

I mainly agree with those sentiments. However, context is important. So when the argument is: “there aren’t enough surface stations”, my reply is “we can only use the data we have”. When the argument is: “the conclusions are premature based on over-fitting” I ask, “what’s your alternative explanation?”.
When the argument is: “The IPCC says the science is settled, and there will be no more debate,” I say: “You’re full of crap, the IPCC does not say that.”

For the record, I am sitting on the fence; I don’t know if it is warming significantly or not, and I am of the opinion that the many, varied and diverse ‘experts’ don’t either.

As a religious agnostic, I can tell you that it takes work to suppress opinion/belief one way or the other. So, I very much doubt the God(s) of extant religions are real, but I have their texts to point to as evidence against them. Whether God(s) exist outside the realm of human comprehension or present belief … I got nuthin’. Which way I lean varies with what I’m thinking about on any given day.
I think if you see fit to put “experts” in scare quotes you’ve got some insight to justify your opinion that they don’t know what the heck they’re doing. I’m sorry, but I don’t see that as a very neutral position any more than mine is on the subject of man-made religion. You’re as much saying that nothing a climate scientist says will convince you of the veracity of their claims very much like I more or less will not accept the existence of God(s) until I experience Him/Her/It/Them directly.

It is also my opinion that this whole shebang may be the worst handling of scientific research in modern times.

I would blame the political end over anything. To my lay eyes, the science looks as well done as anything else I’m familiar with in the hard sciences.

If they are in fact correct they have already got most of the people offside by exaggerating the scale and certainty of the evidence.

HI Brandon,
This is clearly too complicated for you to understand. Why not try a ‘for dummies’ website? I am sure you would find them more suitable and much easier to understand than the complexities of subtle humour.

Brandon has not apologized for suggesting that my father would post such an image, and I am not in the least surprised. I can assure you my father would never use such an image. I chuckled when I saw it because it pales in comparison to what I see on facebook.
I have to say Brandon, that you have the mind of a child, fussing and squirming for attention. You cast aspersions angrily because you are unable to comprehend what is being discussed. it is really a kind of sad thing to watch. My kids went through this stage.
As a parent I find myself looking out for all children, and I wonder if I can help you with some of your ‘issues”. Would you be open to that?

Brandon has not apologized for suggesting that my father would post such an image, and I am not in the least surprised.

I actually wrote one, decided better of it, and deleted it.

I can assure you my father would never use such an image.

Hmm. He doesn’t exactly appear put out at its use either. Neither do you for that matter. Odd that you berate me for thinking he chose that image but take no issue with Anthony for associating it with his work to begin with. That doesn’t exactly add up.

I chuckled when I saw it because it pales in comparison to what I see on facebook.

lol. Don’t set the bar too high or anything.

I have to say Brandon, that you have the mind of a child, fussing and squirming for attention. You cast aspersions angrily because you are unable to comprehend what is being discussed.

I see. What exactly is it that I don’t understand?

As a parent I find myself looking out for all children, and I wonder if I can help you with some of your ‘issues”. Would you be open to that?

Gates
The IPCC sez that AGW didn’t kick in until post 1950.
That leaves one warming trend attributable to AGW: the trend from circa 1977-97.
But you know that was due to increased insolation, as shown by McLean, whose study you have read and which has never been refuted.
So where is your AGW? There is none, as you well know.

Here’s mine: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-3-1-1.htmlThe global average surface temperature has increased, especially since about 1950. The updated 100-year trend (1906–2005) of 0.74°C ± 0.18°C is larger than the 100-year warming trend at the time of the TAR (1901–2000) of 0.6°C ± 0.2°C due to additional warm years. The total temperature increase from 1850-1899 to 2001-2005 is 0.76°C ± 0.19°C. The rate of warming averaged over the last 50 years (0.13°C ± 0.03°C per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years. Three different global estimates all show consistent warming trends. There is also consistency between the data sets in their separate land and ocean domains, and between sea surface temperature (SST) and nighttime marine air temperature (see Figure TS.6). {3.2}
Now where’s yours?

That leaves one warming trend attributable to AGW: the trend from circa 1977-97.

But you know that was due to increased insolation, as shown by McLean, whose study you have read and which has never been refuted.

I pointed out what I thought the flaws were in the McLean paper was when we discussed it.

So where is your AGW? There is none, as you well know.

As you well know, this is where I believe most of it is going:http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/itemp2000_global.png
Which is where most of would pretty much be expected to go since the oceans cover 70% of the surface, downward longwave penetrates the surface of the oceans but only allows IR to come back out — and yes penetrate — at the skin layer, the oceans are far more massive than anything else in the climate system, and have four times the heat capacity of the atmosphere.
That’s all fairly basis physics. Figuring out and predicting the particulars is obviously more involved and subject to error … which means one paper by McLean — or anyone — really isn’t sufficient to falsify the theory. A billion papers will never “prove” the theory because that’s not how null hypothesis testing works.
“As you well know” … because YOU are omniscient and never make mistakes, apparently.

Apologies; Goody and Yung was first published in 1964, so it’s 51 years of incorrect teaching! The paperback edition was 1995: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ji0vfj4MMH0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
The erroneous S-B equation explanation start at Eq. 1.2 which although nearly correct numerically, fails to point out that OLR = σ(Tem^4 -Tcmwb^4) where Tem is the effective Earth emission temperature and Tcmwb is the 2.7 deg K cosmic microwave background.
This basic mistake plus falsely claiming OLR comes from a discrete emission zone, a bad IR mistake, leads to 94.5 W/m^2 or 40% increase in energy input over reality. Most of it supposedly partitions to the oceans. ‘Positive feedback’ is another numerical trick; apparent use in GISS models of 1/3rd more low cloud albedo as a fitting parameter in hind casting, first detected in 2010. This maintains apparent real temperature matching because cloud cover is 2/3rds, but purports much more evaporation than reality.

One of us, in this case, means you.
But please correct me if I am mistaking you for another troll with a similar nick by pointing to the place where you have denounced those that use the term “denier” to characterize the people they disagree with.

Wow, that post is so overloaded as to be nearly impossible to respond to. How about this, I use the d-word myself other places, rarely, but not here since it’s against blog policy. Not only that, but bad form as a guest. I see a big difference between playing rough and being a total asshole. I wouldn’t expect thin-skinned bullies to grok that concept, so YMMV.

And there is the rub. It costs politicians big-time the carry real water for the Club of Rome’s children. When Obama vetoes the Keystone Pipeline or the House votes for “Cap n Trade” they get pummeled where it counts – at the ballot box.
Most of the time, the pols are just spending money and they do that all the time and nobody cares too much. But when they do something tangibly destructive to the economy and jobs – there will be blood on the floor. West Virginia has voted Democrat forever: Not anymore.
I know it seems like we are losing, but anytime the ‘real’ part of the hidden agenda reaches up and takes bread off the table the voters punish politicians. Nobody believes their prophecies of doom anymore. The skeptics underestimate how effective the truth has been at limiting the damage Maurice Strong and his cabal have done.
At the end of the day, voters, not bureaucrats, control the politicians. And voters, with all their limitations remain creatures of self-interest. They certainly aren’t going to make any sacrifices for something that is increasingly revealed as a lie. The bureaucrats may be able to bury Willie Soon alive with their vile, orchestrated ‘dog pile’. But they can’t can’t move the electorate. We can win every time they try to play that hand.

“At the end of the day, voters, not bureaucrats, control the politicians. And voters, with all their limitations remain creatures of self-interest.”
And that is why the US is working so hard on importing more voters that don’t give a damn, so that these politicians can do what they like without being punished.

Even Mexicans are unlikely to vote against their self-interest. Fear of CAGW isn’t going to move the immigrant vote either. If anything environmental issues have less appeal to immigrant voters than they do the natives.

Sorry this a bit of topic but still related on how Pachauri and Maurice Strong have infiltrated the UN and It’s subsidiaries.
It is not the whole answer but their tactics are eerily similar, So it is up to you, please read, ” And not a shot fired ” , written by a Czechoslovakian “bureaucrat” in the early 50’s. His name is Jan Kozak . You can Google him, you will get an abstract of his program to infiltrate the West with misinformation by using low level bureaucrats (hidden as refugees after WWII and the Hungarian revolution in 1956). I do not want to be a downer but it is a revelation and seems to be the way Strong operates it is never him in the spotlight but he is always lurking in the background.

Asybot,
You’ve sensed the influence operations swirling around you. Kozak described what he saw happening in his country. It is best if we have a full understanding of the roots and the tactics of our opponents.
These operations were the brainchild of a German genius of covert operations: Willi Muenzenberg. He was a comrade of Lenin, and ran the covert influence operations for the Comintern–from the 1920s through about 1939.
“Willi Muenzenberg was a Soviet agent, a genius of propaganda, who conceived of the covert influence operations that planted the seeds of self-destruction in America. Otto Katz, another Soviet agent, devout communist, and man of many names and faces, was a principal instrument to carry out the plan. He worked tirelessly in the United States, especially Hollywood, to weave Soviet-inspired propaganda into our national cultural life.”
Muenzenberg created the system of front organizations in the United States–all focused on “feel good” issues (anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-Normal) that sucked in masses of what he called “Innocents.”
Muenzenberg’s front system proliferated across our country, and is the exact template that the Politically Correct Progressives follow today in their continuing efforts to destroy Normal-America.http://www.andmagazine.com/us/13280.html

$87.50 for the used book on Amazon. I think that the gist of the book may be correct. What I am looking for is why so many think that we need communism. It just baffles me that so many seemingly intelligent people think that we need totalitarian communism.

Jim,
The “Innocents” do NOT think they are supporting totalitarianism. They think they are supporting “clean air,” or “anti-racism,” or “save the Earth,” or any one of the other front causes used to suck them in.
It’s the “Elite Vanguard,” the Paurcharis, the Michael Manns, the Al Gores who know exactly what they are for–pure political power and unlimited budgets to control the lives of the rest of us.
Full details: http://www.willingaccomplices.com

I note from a European Commission press release (Warsaw, 19th November 2013) that ‘at least 20% of the entire European Union budget for 2014-2020 will be spent on climate-related projects and policies’ and that ‘the 20% commitment triples the current share and could yield as much as 180 billion Euros in climate spending in all major EU policy areas over the seven-year period.’
186,000,000,000 Euros – a colossal waste of money.
Where is the climate change we’ve all heard so much above? The tale has been endlessly pushed by the mainstream media, with actual figures never discussed – ‘The climate is changing! We’re to blame!’
I suggest that climate has changed little, and certainly not in any manner to cause concern. It certainly hasn’t in my 66 years of living in the UK. I like meteorology books – much better than the doomsday stories of Gore and his ilk. Do these tiny, fractional differences in temperature matter at all? It’s always seemed to me that a range of results defines a lot of things in the natural world – for example a lot of blood chemistry values are within a normal range of values, ofter quite a wide one.
Lo and behold, here’s what I found during my browsing.
The Kӧppen classification of climate was devised by a German climatologist, Wladimir Kӧppen (1846-1940). It has been the best known and most used climate classification system for decades, and describes the UK as having a humid middle latitude, mild winter or Marine West Coast (Cfb) type of climate.
What the Cfb coding means is that the average temperature of the coldest month is under 18⁰C and above -3⁰C.
No month is above 22⁰C, and at least four are over 10⁰C.
And so it remains, regardless of annual variations which are expected – a wide range of temperatures defines climate.
Thus it was in 2014, and also back in 1659 as seen for example in the Central England Temperature Record (CET), the world’s oldest temperature record.
All this has stayed the same regardless of the small increase in concentration of the trace gas over which so much fuss has been made, and the fractional variations in temperature which have been attributed to it.
It’s now 2015.
Which country has changed has changed its climate as defined by the Köppen classification?
We’ve now reached the bizarre situation where typical foul weather is referred to as ‘extreme’, and an ‘impact of climate change’ – yet Greg Carbin of America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has for example pointed out that tornado counts vary considerably from year to year, the apparent increase being due to enhanced public awareness, population growth, and improvements in detection technology. Despite this, the official tornado count in the USA is going down – from 1691 in 2011, 939 in 2012, and 898 in 2013.
It’s surely time to grasp the nettle and repeal the ridiculous Climate Change Act. It seems however that few politicians have actually sat down and studied the alleged danger in any detail.
Vast sums of public money which could be better spent elsewhere will continue to be thrown down the drain.
I think the old saying ‘follow the money’ has a lot to do with the politics of so-called ‘climate change’, and also the proverbial slippery career pole. Being a ‘yes man’ and going along with the consensus is so much easier than asking awkward questions!

It seems however that few politicians have actually sat down and studied the alleged danger in any detail.

“When in that house MP’s preside if they’ve a brain and cerebellum too,
They have to leave their brains outside and vote just as their leaders tell’em to.”
W. S. Gilbert “Iolanthe”
Politicians do not use brains, more a group think approach; as Gilbert rightly says they leave their brains outside the DC or Westminster bubble. The idea that a politician would be interested enough to study the science is laughable. That is not what they are about. Nothing in the letter to Willie Soon mentioned any science nor the follow up letters to the other scientists. Politicians do not have the mental capability or more importantly interest, to even follow the science; but they know good political arguments and Alinsky tactics and use those instead if they want to defeat an argument, even one based on good science.

Still waiting for a reaction from WUWT to the Boston Globe article the other day where the author gleefully stated that if the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf does collapse and the East Coast of the USA is inundated by rising sea levels then all of us so-called deniers quite rightly will be sued to high heaven.

Are you saying that anybody that has used fossil fuels since the invention of the steam engine, that has helped to create our modern world of high technology where there is great prosperity and long lives compared to the pre-industrial age, and the people who benefit from technology, from remote villagers that use water pumps to pump fresh water to their dinner tables or users of electricity to light their homes so their children can read books, should be sued?
How’s your carbon footprint? I haven’t driven a car in years and only consumed $10 dollars of gasoline so far this century, haven’t flown in a plane since 1988, my electricity is from renewable hydro-power, and I’m the denier?

Did the article touch on the possibility of a corollary . If , despite the extraction of 100s of billions of dollars , pounds and euros from EU and US taxpayers , the ice shelf does not collapse , USA and Europe are not submerged , but the CO2 continues to rise , can we sue Al Gore, Michael Mann and Banki Moon for the return of our money?

Oh, I am predicting the public will be VERY concerned about ‘climate change’ soon enough: freaking out about the super cold weather, that is! The 1970’s was very unpleasant and this cycle will be worse.

Look to government’s need to raise more money to spend on their pet projects or try to cover deficits. If climate change is a moral issue how could anyone challenge a little tax increase on fuel or electricity when it is needed to fight this moral issue?

I read about a third of the post and then quit. I could not get past the “Billy walking a rambling path from here to there” writing style. And some quotes are missing unless the author was paraphrasing. Without redlining it to death let me just say the work is in need of serious editing. Any and all scientists and public commentators: Consider your writing skills, not just your science and/or political acumen, when writing about what irks you.

What is the difficulty in understanding why politicians keep pushing global warming while the public is unconcerned? The public looks at it as a science issue, have made a decision from the information and have moved on to things that are important to them. Politicians look at it as a means to control the public and push the world towards world government. they will never give up their best vehicle to reach that goal, until the public arouses itself enough to make their opinion stick at the polls. Trouble is, most politicians that WANT world government and to control the public are also the ones that are willing to give the public everything it wants as long as they continue to re-elect them, so the public eventually will wear the straightjacket that the politicians will create for them through the use of global warming. And they will only have themselves to blame, and FEMA has a camp – if you are in the US and oppose global warming – just ready for your re-education.

While I wouldn’t be optimistic towards the outcome, it would be quite interesting to see a court challenge concerning this matter. Science (which has yet to explain gravity) cannot answer the question as to what the weather (climate – whatever) will be like 100 years from now anymore than science can answer a question concerning the existence of a god.
(But, give the stair climbers enough money, and they’ll try.)

>>Quote:
>>The secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is to join a
>> public march calling for action on climate change this weekend.
I hope he is going to do it in Boston. And I hope he brings a sleigh and a few reindeer to get to the venue. How does he get away with such balderdash?
>>Quote:
>>Pachauri was an extreme and almost unique bureaucrat, but that is
>>one of the few differences between the UN and National bureaucracies.
Not really. We had Catherine Ashton as the EU foreign minister. She was an unelected CND supporter, with no credentials, no record in management, no experience of government, and a suspicion that she had accepted money from Russia to undermine and destroy Britain. She was also a simpering simpleton, who looked like the back of a bus and dressed like a cross between a hippie and a tramp. But she became one of the highest paid ministers in the world because she had married a friend of Tony Blair. Great credentials, eh?
I suspect that Pachi came to power by the same politico-governmental back door. The head of the IPCC could not be a pale-face, which excluded most candidates. And he or she had to be a brain-dead numbskull who would not understand the science and merely do exactly what he was told by his controllers. Pachi came top in every category.
R

I think you are being unkind to the “weather functionaries” in New Zealand. Those involved in weather work in the MetService who through their subsidiary MetraWeather (http://www.metraweather.com/about-metraweather) have a pretty good reputation internationally for providing forecasting services.
The problem child in NZ is NIWA (www.niwa.co.nz/climate) a government owned research lab that dabbles in the climate end of the game.

Tim
I assume your question (Why do polls show the public is unconcerned about global warming or climate change, yet most politicians continue to support considerable funding for research and the push for remedial action?) is not rhetorical.
Politicians care for 2 reasons:
1) Running around yelling about the sky falling is just good fun. And it sounds important.
2) Even with limited public concern, politicians have translated this issue into money (taxes), which equals power, which gives them (more) control over daily life. Political power (control) is an end unto itself.

I nominate the following as The Fundamental Truth of Climate Science:
“All of the real argument about it is not whether or not it exists and is reasonable, it is about whether or not we can compute it in the enormously complex “house” that is the Earth, where the heater and the “colder outdoors” are both outside the indefinite “boundary” of the house itself, so that what we are dealing with is a heater that is “on” different parts of every day in different parts of the world, that is constantly being screened by things like clouds, that heats dry desert rock and sand, wet lush vegetation, plowed fields, city rooftops and pavement, polar and seasonal ice and snow, and the oceans all enormously differentially with short wave radiation that the dry, cloud free atmosphere is quite transparent to and with equal variability in both surface and atmospheric emissivity, surface and atmospheric albedo, transparency and absorptivity at depth of the waters, latent heat, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, with conduction and convection and latent heat transport that forms known but chaotic patterns that dominate the constantly fluctuating temperature that results from heat gain and loss in all of the thermal reservoirs of the planet with their enormously diverse effective heat capacities and with its entire spectrum of thermal relaxation times.”

To be honest I think this question is a bit of a red herring, or at least misguided. To draw an analogy, the last person saved from a train wreck is as important as the first. The government bureaucrats would look at a poll like that presented here as being worthy of addressing in its entirety. Order is ignored. They would simply alter the priorities to best fit the aggregate agenda of those doing the prioritization. That should be no surprise to anyone, nor should anyone be surprised that there are things they fund that are not on such lists because they all would like to be re-elected.

dp
Not sure the “last person saved from the train wreck” logic works; in that situation, one human life is as valuable as the next. That’s definitely not true of a list of 20 social issues.
Frankly, the current implementation of “representative democracy” allows politicians too much discretion to do what is good for the “political class”, regardless of what the voters think.
German green energy is a perfect use case: voters really don’t care because they don’t realize how insidious the political grab for power had become. They are just now becoming aware of paying roughly 3 times the average kWh rate paid in the USA, and German manufacturing is moving jobs to lower-cost geographies (i.e. out of Germany).

The ‘average Joe’ in the US doesn’t care about AGW because it doesn’t directly affect him yet. Temperature seems nearly the same to most people. Carbon tax is something industries pay, not people. All the scare stories are either backfiring because they aren’t realized or get put in the ‘so what’ mental bin. MSM has been effective in squelching the skeptics so the people have nothing other than their own innate sense that they’re being led by the nose to something….but they’re not sure what yet. Some countries have already figured it out and given the finger to the UN/IPCC. China is playing them for the fools that they are. I don’t think the people of first world countries will put up with a UN power grab and redistribution of their hard earned assets to the second and third world countries that have squandered their chances to be successful (for whatever reason), It may not come down to temperature but human nature in the end to see who wins this battle.

According to the polls no one will watch because no one cares. Face it, most people think albedo is a sexual dysfunction. A program throwing numbers at the audience is boring and won’t even hit the ratings chart.

David Anderson, former Canadian Minister of the Environment announced government acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol. In the Press release he said they had consulted with all Canadian climate experts. Eight Canadian climate experts flew to Ottawa for a press conference to announce they were not consulted. Of course, the Minister was referring mostly to the bureaucratic scientists at Environment Canada.

Everything seems to simplify to money. As we all know, debt is a most effective economic weapon. Standing on the sidewalk corner handing out cash will find a lot of takers, but next time if you have to give your name and where you live, maybe not. Africa has been in the cash game for some time–I am continually boggled that Daniel Arap Moi left office with $6 billion–not million–billion. The new cash give away is labled carbon credits and amazingly it has strings attached, that western corps get the awards for building, paving, electrifying, etc and the rub is that the African nations want a say-so in who gets the awards. It is twice blessed as the private corps get a tax exempt for doing this good work in a third world country.

Bureaucratic control seems to explain the continued, almost total political support for the IPCC. This support continues despite evidence of corruption, failed predictions and polls showing virtually no public concern. … The political ideology is given scientific support and drive by his Science Advisor, John Holdren. He was involved in the process from the start. He co-authored a book with Paul Ehrlich and was a major player in the Club of Rome agenda.

I’ve oft held that after all that is allowed to be said and done, with all the grant money shot upon studying a camel pissing away its hump to malign CO2, the ‘correct’ answer is the one that furthers the preordained agenda and totalitarian course.
I’ll try posting this here as, since mentioning Holdren’s views, I’ve apparently been banned from commenting on a blog maintained by a certain world-renowned, chubby anthropologistic ‘warmist’::
———————-http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/documents/letters-seven-universities-asking-documents-climate-change-research
^^These letters have the air of intimidation about them; A hint and reminder that governent (public) funding will be withdrawn — ‘Your professors are suspect if not part of The Consensus; Publish our view or perish.’
In the letter to Pepperdine University (re: Professor Steven F. Hayward):

… After the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commision published a 2013 report on Great Lakes climate impacts, he callid it “some kind of cannabis-related entity that went into the wrong meeting room somewhere, and produced another silly climate report that has been falsified already. I suggest they all go out and get real jobs.”

If I say ‘two plus two equals four,’ does the truth of that proposition depend on whether I’ve received a grant from the Charles G. Koch Foundation? Apparently it does for Rep. Raul Grijalva

–Steven F. Hayward
I find that very fitting. Golly. The UN (U.S.) stranglehold on cannabinoid research was so tight that it was defacto forbidden excepting government funded studies with a hypothesis and preconception to show harm.
In fingering Prof. Roger Pielke, Jr., Grijalva makes a direct appeal to authority:

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has highlighted what he believes were serious misstatements by Prof. Pielke…

I take it that Holdren holds that Pielke has misrepresented his stance on that introduced issue. Yet, when anyone tries to pin Holdren down on his proposed forced population reduction ‘position’ as stated in Ecoscience (1977), the forthcoming clarification becomes as elusive as the model-predicted mid-tropospheric warming.https://archive.org/download/Ecoscience_17/JohnHoldren-Ecoscience.pdf

I’d send the link to BC Premier Christy Clark if it had a graphic not likely to offend here (being a practicing Christian and having whacked Sir Branson for sending her a photo of him waterskiing with a nude female on his back.

“Author and political commentator Mary McCarthy said, “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.”
Certainly reminds me of the old Russian saying “The Czar does not rule Russian, a thousand clerks do.”
But a bigger problem is that “democracy”, beyond being a “tyranny of the majority”, enables to power-mongers and worse to
Recall the supposed “people’s revolutions” in places like Cuba and Russia led to strong oppressive “leaders”. Lenin and Trotsky were cheap thugs who met in prison. Che Gueverra was a psychopath who liked killing

“Kentclizbe”, Marxist ideas underly post-modernism, post-normal science, and other bad theologies. Communism is Marxism in action, as is socialism (just softer velvet on the glove). The common foundation is a negative view of humans as uncreative and untrustworthy. Thus the fixed-pie economics and drive-to-the-bottom ethics behind forecasts of resource shortages and environmental devastation that does not happen in a free society protected by justice and defense systems. And the focus on income-redistribution as the fix to various ills – instead of helping poor people get freedom with justice.
What’s alarming is how many voters fall for the scam.
Granted, in the US the Republican party nominates fools like the one who accused half the population of being on the dole as he couldn’t tell the difference between forced charity and an earned retirement plan (Social Security, which is in theory based on contributions by employee and employer), “more hat than cattle” GWB (http://www.moralindividualism.com/whycondit.htm). So the alternatives to wimpy Carter and Obama are not hugely attractive.

Keith,
Thanks for your comments and guidance.
Actually, I wrote a book about the origins of Politically Correct Progressive’s belief system. You’re on the right track, it’s just a bit more complicated.
Full details: http://www.willingaccomplices.com

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